


Please Take Me Back To What I Knew

by Cspenc



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkward Kissing, Eleven | Jane Hopper and Mike Wheeler are Cute, Eleven | Jane Hopper and Mike Wheeler in Love, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler Fluff, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler-centric, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gentle Kissing, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), Love, Mike Wheeler Loves Eleven | Jane Hopper, POV Mike, References to Depression, Sad, Sad Eleven | Jane Hopper, Stranger Things Spoilers, True Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cspenc/pseuds/Cspenc
Summary: This everything we didn't see in between the three-month jump of season 3. We see how El and Mike are dealing with everything.  Will, their relationship survive or will distance and turmoil get in the way of their love.Down the road this story will jump into the future 2-3 year jump to see where everyone is and where they stand.This will go back and forth  between Mike's POV El's POV Will's POV and Joyce's POV





	Please Take Me Back To What I Knew

Please Take Me Back To What I Knew

Chap 1

**Time After Time**

**1985 ( pre-curser to when they actually leave)**

**El's POV**

It's been 2 years, 2 years since the Byers and El moved away from Hawkins, the only home they have ever know. Both El and Will shared the goods and bads of Hawkins during there stay at the ' sleepy ' town. It has been extremely hard for both of them to leave. Will had to leave the town he was born in, his best friends, the party, Mr. Clark, the AV room everything. Everything he knew was now gone. It was like he was leaving his heart is the only place he knew and loved, even though the last couple of years have been hell, he still called it home, and now it wasn't anymore...

El only knew Hawkins as bad, sad, scary and so many other things, she couldn't think of enough words think to describe and explain the hatred she felt towards Hawkins. But that changed the day she met Mike, her Mike. The only person she loved so much that, she sometimes felt that she would run out of space in her body because her body was jammed packed with only love for him. Her views on Hawkins have changed over the years because of him. 

Without Hawkins, she wouldn't have found him, her soulmate, her person. So when Joyce told her that they would be moving in a couple of weeks to a different state away from him, away from everything she has grown to love since she has been free from the lab, she literally felt her self grow sad, distant ,unplugged like an invisible rug that had been pulled from underneath her. 

She was still gripping with the loss of Hopper, but she had the support of everyone to help her. She had been trying to get better over the last couple of months, to better her self so people would stop worrying about her, even though half her heart died that day that Hopper parished she tried to live the best life, not for her, but for him. She knew she was being unlogical and stupid and that he would want her to live for her, but without him, she quite literally wouldn't be here, she would have died either from being out in the woods for to long or the lab would have hunted her down and got rid of her for good but Hopper, her dad saved her.. and she didn't save him. So she made a pack with herself, ‘don't live for your self, live for Hopper, live and try to be happy for him’.. It was the least she could do for him... after everything he did for her it was her only last good thing she could pay tribute to him.

El was good at faking it. She was a master of faking, her real self, her real feelings, emotions, even to Mike, which hurt her deeply but she didn't him want him to see her like that.So she acted, she acted the part that needed to be played. After Joyce had given her some warnings about leaving she started to pull away from everyone. Yes, she was still physically there, but emotionally, mentally she checked out months and even weeks before. It was like she was looking behind a glass window, she could see everything going on around her, but couldn't really hear what was going on. It was a barrier between the outside world and her world and she liked it that way... It was for the best.

* * *

**Mikes POV**

Ever since he was told that his best friend and his girlfriend were leaving, Mike was a total wreck. Behind closed doors, when no one around to bother him he would scream into his pillow and cry into his sheets. He loved Will, he was his best friend since kindergarten, he was his first friend in general before Lucas and Dustin. It was like someone sucker-punched him in the stomach, it stung and it hurt and the pain wouldn’t go away so quickly.

Then when he heard about El leaving he all but burst out crying when he found out. He felt numb, he couldn't feel his heart at all. His body was in shock. He couldn’t feel anything...

 _No, no... NO, NO NONONONO!'_ He screamed in his head. He couldn't lose her, he couldn't give her up. He just couldn't... His whole body felt like it got dunked in a cold lake, his whole entire being was cold inside and out. He was figitivly numb and mentally numb.

He loved her with his whole being, he didn't care he was only 15, he knew what love was when he looked at her. He knew when he held her, when he kissed her..He just knew... And for that to be ripped away, to be ripped away from his soul mate, it was a little too real, a little too much. He was so used to her being around him, after there mini ' break up ' it really hit him, how much he needed her. She was his air, without her he couldn't breathe. He tried to relax, to calm down, anything to get him stabilized but nothing worked. There was a permanent shiver in his back and permanent unshed tears in his eyes that he couldn't shake off, as hard as he tried to get this feeling to go away, it never did.. it only got stronger each passing day and it was slowly killing him mentally and emotionally.

Mike kept a secrete bin of El and him, just stuff for him to look back at. They only have been dating for 9 months but it felt like forever. They had so many memories in the time they had together. Mike grabbed the bin from his closet. He made sure to lock his room before spilling out the contents on his bed.

The first thing was the yellow shirt he had given her when he first met her. He never washed it, so it still had that musky, rainy smell to it, it still even had the bloodstain on the collar of the shirt. He put that aside and grabbed the picture of them from their first dance together, the snowball. He now thanked Jonathan and Ms.Byers for taking secret pictures of them from that night. There was only 3 taken that night. The first one was Mike and El on the dance floor, Mikes hands on her waist and her hands around his neck. They were both smiling at one another with big doe-eyed looks. The second was them kissing at the snowball. They decided that they wanted some space from everyone so they went into a corner by themselves and just enjoy themselves, the picture shows Mike pecking her on the lips quickly, while El's one hand is on his chest and the other is on his cheek, smiling into the kiss. The last one is them back the Byers. They are both laying down on the couch, Mike laying down on the couch and El respectively laying on top of him. Mikes arms are tight around her small frame while El's hands are placed around his neck, her face snuggled into his neck. He remembers that night clearly, he also remembers how she kissed his neck and how he fell more in love with her with that small gesture she did.

Another thing was a card that El gave him. It was simple. El wrote her name and his name in black marker, her handwriting wasn't the best but she was learning, granted she never was taught to write before, he thought it was cute, it looked like a 3-year-old wrote ' _El + Mike '_ with a heart around it. She was so excited to give to him, he remembers. She practically ran to him and threw it in his face. He smiled at the memory.

The next couple of things were new, only a couple of months old, before everything exploded into hell. They were mostly pictures of them, to which Jonathan had taken of them. He was grateful that he captured these moments, even though these were fairly new, they felt so old. His heart hurt at that thought. His eyes started to water as he looked at the picture that was just taken Months ago . It was El and Mike in the kitchen, they were attempting to bake something, but they kept getting it wrong and well distracted. In the picture, El was sitting on the island that was located in the Byers house. She was laughing at Mike in the picture because he had frosting all over his face because El smudged it all over his face when he wasn't paying attention. He smiled at the memory. In the pictures that Jonathan took almost broke his heart even more. The first picture was an of El grabbing his wrists and bringing them mere inches to each other. She had cupped her hand around his messy cheek and started to clean off his face. The Picture of them was so happy, they were smiling, Mikes hand resting on El's knee, while her other hand was on his chest, both having goofy smiles on their faces. The next was El grabbing Mike by his hands and brought his messy face and starting kissing all the icing away. The last picture, made him actually cry a little, a tear landing on the picture. The picture showed El passionately making out with Mike, while she was still on the island. By this point, there was no space between them. Lips together, hands clutching each other, foreheads together. El's legs were wrapped around his waist tightly, as Mikes' hands were around her tiny waist, bringing her even closer if that was possible...

At this point, Mike couldn't keep his sobs to himself. He pushed everything to the floor and sobbed into his pillow. He was crying so hard that he was shaking, violently, it's like he couldn't stop, like someone has turned on a switch within him and he couldn't stop the inflow of tears and emotion that poured out of him. He doesn't know how long he cried for, 5 minutes, 5 hours he didn't know. All he knew is that his face was hot and hurt, his eyes burning from the amount of crying he had done and his head pounding and his throat hurt from screaming.

The rest of the day he stayed in his room, locked awayfrom the world, locked away from Will, from El... He kept replaying memories of both of them, which brought on an onslaught of more pain, which turned into crying. He hated this, he hated this so much. He wanted to do something, anything to keep his best friend and El with him. But he couldn't think of a good plan to keep everyone together. He felt like everything was slipping away from him, and he was trying so hard to hold on to it, but it was useless. He felt useless, he felt like he let everyone around him down... That night he cried himself to sleep, wanting so badly just hold El. Hold her and never ever letting her go again...

* * *

**El's POV / Mikes POV / Will's POV**

" Hey El, Mike wants to know if he can come over here and hang out with you, Mom and I are gonna go the next town over for a little to get some stuff, is that okay if he comes over?" Will said to her.

She was sitting on the couch, not really paying attention, she hasn't been paying attention for some time now. She tried to act like she was but each day she was retreating, pushing everyone away from her. She sat there like a stone, her legs sitting crisscrossed with a blanket over her legs, her arms squeezing her self to the point she couldn't breathe, In a sick way she liked it, it made her feel something besides the numbness.

" Hm? I guess so sure.." she said in a flat, emotionless voice. Looking back at the wall to where she was just staring at before.

" Uh yeah, sure Mike you can come over," Will said in a quiet voice. He peered over his shoulder to see if El was listening, but he didn't think she was

" Hey, can you- you need to talk to El, she hasn't been her self in months and well it's freaking me- us out, my mom and Jonathan out. It's like she's a zombie and shes hear physically but mentally and emotionally shes far away... I - I know you can get to her, you are the only one who can really talk to her. Please, Mike, please help" Will said softly into the phone, choking up a little bit at the end.

Mike had seen this side of El for while now. After their mini break up he's seen her change. We’ll everything that happened at the mall really, he had never seen this side of her before and it freaked him out. He had tried to be there for her, They were semi back together, they never really talked about it truthfully.. and that made him even sadder and more hurt. But he was willing to do anything just to be around her, and here was his chance

" Sure Will, I'll try my best, I don't know but we technically aren't really back together, formally I mean. We never really talked about it. I know we have hung out and have been touchy-feely with one another and sneaked some kisses months ago, before everything got bad but Will I don't know what's happening to her. She hasn't really talked much since everything and it's breaking my heart. But I will do everything I can today and try to help her. I love her.." Mike said in a sad watery voice. He huffed, trying to collect himself

" Ohhh. I just assumed you guys were back together because I saw you guys kissing once or twice and it looked fine between you.. maybe.. never mind. Just please get over here soon, I'm leaving now, I'll keep the front door unlocked for you since she knows you are coming over anyways"

" Thank Will, I'm getting ready right now, I should be over in about 15 minutes"

" Alright bye Mike, good luck" Will hung up the phone with a click.

Mike whispered to himself ' _Right now I need all the luck in the world '_

* * *

**El's POV**

" Bye El! we are leaving now, we should be back in a couple of hours, Mike should be here soon... I love you El, see you" Will yelled at El from the door as he slammed it.

Usually slamming doors made her flinch but she didn't even react. 

El muttered" Bye Will" under her breath, never moving from the same position from before.

El just sat there. thinking to her self, but not really. She felt too lonely yet so confined at the same time.

_' Why, Why me...'_

I asked my self. I was getting really tired of being like this, but what other options do I have here...

I looked around the house. We still had a couple of more weeks here till we moved but everyone else started slowly packing. I didn't have the strength to even start. She sighed and rested her head on the back of the couch. She wanted Mike here, but at the same time, she didn't want to be near him. She was conflicted... She told him that she loved him, and she kissed him. That was the last time they kissed and she felt the ghost of his lips on hers as she thought about that moment.

She wanted, no needed to tell him that, she argued with her self. She was deeply, sickly truthfully, wholeheartedly in love with Mike. She felt a spark of something light inside of her, something she hadn't felt in months, she wanted to hold on to that sliver of feeling, but it was cut out before she could grasp it.

' _Stop it El, you know you can't, it's going to be too hard.. just keep doing what you're doing. It's for the best for now and in the long run,'_ her mind whispered that to her.

She tightened the blanket around her tightly, too tightly... She started to feel hot tears run down her face.

' G _et your shit together El, NO CRYING!'_ her brain screamed at her. She whimpered at her self. She felt too trapped, she wanted to scream, cry, shout, curse anything but her mind and body wouldn't allow her too. So she settled and bit her tongue until she tasted that familiar taste of blood in her mouth. So she just sat there on the couch for a while, until she heard the door creek open and her favorite voice spoke to her.

" Hey, El..." 

And at the moment she let her self feel something, just for a little bit, and that feeling was love, the only person she could actually hold love in her heart, even if her mind was telling her not to , she couldn't entirely get rid of this feeling... It was the feeling she's been pushing away for months and she desperately wanted to feel at this moment. Mikes love and that's it...

"Hi... Mike" she said in a tiny whisper, and she moved her eyes to his, and she smiled, something she hasn't done in months.. 


End file.
